No, I am not talking about diarrhea of the mouth. If you are a human, you have probably had Diarrhea at one time or another. If it is alright with you I would like to be permitted to take a few moments to share with you what caused me to choose to discuss diarrhea in this blog post and maybe even a little bit about the experiences of some people that I have known that have had diarrhea, including myself.
One of the more embarrassing things that our culture and similar cultures discuss is diarrhea. Every culture is a little bit different. The western culture is EXTREMELY VISUAL. We have been conditioned to believe that if we do not look like some high fashion model on TV or some seemingly perfect celebrity that we have then somehow not fully lived. The brainwashing / programming / paradigm shifting is so powerful that our society has gotten to the point, at least in the United States and similar countries like Great Britain and Australia that we really are not able to separate ourself from the highly visual world that we live in. Let’s face the facts…. we cannot go out in public naked. More attractive people tend to get higher paying jobs. People do judge us according to the type and style of clothes that we wear. Any many parts of the country, women are not even respected if they get up in front of a large group of people to lead a business meeting – even today. Many of us care what type of car we drive for a number of reasons. In many professions such as law, medicine and accounting, we cannot dress however we want; there is a type of a dress code of some sort or another. What this comes down to is that if we have diarrhea in public that is so bad that we are not able to hold it before finding a restroom, this could be a serious problem. It is a serious problem but it is far more common that you would think. The American culture has even developed a slang term for someone who was not able to hold it and then the fecal material some how leaves a visible stain. This is called “skid marks.”
It never fails to surprise me how deeply embedded ideas about health are in our society. Helping patients who experience diarrhea is one of the most challenging and things I have faced as a health care provider and there is an excellent reason why this is the case. Most of the time when my patients experience diarrhea it is a good thing! Diarrhea is one way that the body has of releasing poisons, toxins and even infective microbes such as parasites, viruses, mold, yeast, fungus, candida, mycotoxins and bacteria. Why in the world would you want to have all of these nasty chemicals lingering in your system? But what are we usually told about diarrhea? We are told that we need to do whatever is necessary to relieve the diarrhea. Take Pepto Bismol or Activated Charcoal or Baking Soda or eat rice, etc… But what is this really doing? This is interfering with the body’s natural process of healing. If you have a fungal infection or a parasite, and any many instances a bacterial infection, one of the best things you can do is to have diarrhea. If you are doing a liver cleanse or a kidney cleanse or a heavy metal cleanse or some similar release of really dangerous substances from the body, the best thing that you can have happen is to have diarrhea. I am completely open to and welcome in the idea that if diarrhea is too severe to work that something should be done to be able to balance the diarrhea with work. Yes. We all need to work. We need to pay our bills. Yes, this is true. In Spanish: Si, es la verdad. However, if you have read through enough of these blog posts you probably starting to get a feeling about my personality and have an idea of what I might say next. So, what do you think that I am going to say? If your life has gotten so busy and your health has taken a turn for the worse and now you are experiencing diarrhea, then don’t you think that it might be a good idea to take a break from work for a few days in order to heal and get back on track so that you can become healthier, happier and more productive at work? What do you think? How do you feel about this? Does this not seem like a practical and logical approach?
The most effective and efficient way to approach diarrhea is to address the cause. Why do you have diarrhea? By addressing the cause of the diarrhea you should be able to get it to go away and also keep it from coming back. Understanding the cause of the diarrhea will take some detective work. You will need a health detective like Dr. Ilya Skolnikoff, DC, DIBAK of Triad Of Health Family Healing Center. The health detective can understand not what causes diarrhea for everyone, but rather, what is the specific cause of your diarrhea. There are MILLIONS and MILLIONS of treatments for diarrhea. Thinking in these terms is silly. There is nothing that “works” for diarrhea or “works” for any other health concern for that matter. What really “works” great is diagnosing the underlying cause of whatever health concern you might be having as well as having an effective system of therapies available that can allow for a long term correction to whatever your imbalance is. I hope you are following this. If not, feel free to call in to the office and ask us to give a better explanation and we can go over it a little bit. Or, better yet, just call in and schedule an New Patient Health History and Physical Examination so that we can understand what is causing your health imbalance, specifically, and what would be involved with helping you.
If there is only ONE single thing that I would like for you to take a way from this post it is this: diarrhea is not necessarily bad. If you experience diarrhea, consider finding a really well trained health care provider who can help you to discover why you have diarrhea and who also has an elaborate and involved / effective system of diagnosis and treatment that can help you to permanently resolve your diarrhea. I would also hope that this health care provider would have a way to educate you about your condition, how it came about and how you might be able to work together as a team to relieve yourself from the condition. Please note that I did not say that diarrhea is good in all circumstances. Prolonged diarrhea can be quite dangerous and can lead to extreme electrolyte imbalances and nutritional deficiencies. Diarrhea that is being carefully monitored by a licensed health care provider and that is even anticipated is a completely different diarrhea than one that is not monitored and is not expected and is chronic and severe and debilitating and causing lots of very serious concerns. I have had patients that were overweight experience a little bit of diarrhea over the course of just 7 days lose 10 or even 13 pounds and keep the weight off. This type of diarrhea does not sound bad to me.
Remember that people who regularly experience diarrhea have an Open Ileocecal Valve Syndrome. The circle shown in the diagram surrounds the Ileocecal Valve. This is the location of where the problem is. But what is the cause??
When I was about 10 years old I experienced some diarrhea and had to go and relieve myself in my underwear before I made it to the restroom. It was really embarrassing. I had already been potty trained fore well over 6 years at the time. But nobody really figured out exactly what was going on despite having a father that is a Medical Doctor. I was eating foods I was allergic to. This is what was going on. My body couldn’t take it and it was wanting to get rid of those allergens.
I have had a few friends, mainly female friends, that have had routine diarrhea that was so bad that they would have to pull over off the side of the road and relieve themselves off the side of the road. One of my friends was thinking they would need some type of a diaper type of thing for the condition. And, these are people that are in their late 30s. The thing that my friends had in common was a diet that was high in dairy and sugar and wheat. Ice cream and pizza and juice / smoothies are some of their favorite foods. These may not necessarily be the healthiest foods nor may be the most supportive of good and healthy digestion.
